Pismo, the payments and financial infrastructure provider based out of Brazil, has announced that it has raised $108 million in its Series B of funding that was led by Softbank, Amazon, and Accel and involved other investors as well.
The payments industry has grown exponentially over the last couple of years and this has brought in a huge number of users especially during the pandemic. This was realized by the investors who have been pouring in funds to the industry for the last few months. But of course, the base for all this is the infrastructure setup that these companies rely on and this is where the likes of Pismo come in as they provide the backbone for such payment companies. It is interesting to note that Amazon has chosen to get involved in the funding of this company which shows the interest of the company in Latin America where it believes in investing time and funds so that it can grow the different payment methods which would be beneficial for the various services that the company would offer in the future in this region.
“One year ago, the central bank [of Brazil] launched an instant payment solution. Banks and fintechs were scrambling,” said CEO and Co-Founder Richard Josua. “Since we had built the technology for this new generation, we were ready and 100% real-time and institutions were able to implement without a single line of code. It is a very simple product that we think will be spread everywhere, even in the U.S.”
The company’s infrastructure currently handles more than 4 billion calls monthly and more than $3.5 billion in terms of transaction volume. This is 3 times the volumes that it was handling at the beginning of the year which shows the growth of the space and the company as well. The company now boasts of a clientele that includes Banco Itau, one of the largest banks in Brazil, and other financial companies. It charges them fees for each transaction made using its platform and it already has clients in Asia as well. The company plans to use these funds to grow in the US and UK and do more hiring as well. The company seems to have a solid business model and with its continued focus on payments infrastructure, it seems to have got its priorities right for the long term.
